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Audrey Saunders Leaves the Tar Pit

Two months after opening the tiki-themed Tar Pit bar in Los Angeles with the chef Mark Peel, Audrey Saunders has left, citing “differences of opinion regarding the overall vision and direction” and “fundamental differences regarding the marketing strategy.”

Mr. Peel told the Los Angeles Times’s Daily Dish Web site that the bar menu would not immediately change, “but like any menu, things evolve.” He said it would become “a little more farmers market-oriented. Right now, there’s incredible citrus out there, blood oranges, Meyer lemons, kumquats, Cara Cara pink oranges. I’d like to work with our staff to develop those.”

In an e-mail exchange with Diner’s Journal, Ms. Saunders, owner of the Pegu Club in SoHo, wouldn’t elaborate on the disagreements about vision and direction, but she indicated that dealing with publicity was a problem.

“Mark is also a media personality,” Ms. Saunders said, and she and her business partners Chad Solomon and Christy Pope, “are all very low-key individuals when it comes to promotion. It’s not our style to promote our beverage program through cable programs, etc — and that became a stumbling block for us.”

Both Ms. Saunders and Mr. Peel had warm words for each other.

“Mark Peel and Jay Perrin are good people,” she said of the chef and his business partner, “and we think very highly of them both.”

Mr. Peel told Daily Dish that Ms. Saunders “did all the training and designing for the original menu, and I think she did a great job,” adding, “we just came to a parting of the ways.”